In the moment: new fall stories

NYC October 2012

As I walked out into my living room this morning, I was greeted with the smell of fall. I had left the window open the night before, allowing the crisp air and a cool breeze to enter and settle into the room. The sky looked gray but that feeling of newness that fall brings, that feeling I had been longing for, finally arrived.

I'm a summer baby, born at the end of July, but fall is my season. It is when I come alive. When the leaves change colors, a sense of urgency to start anew emerges inside of me, and suddenly I, too, want a change.

This year has been rough. Financially. For the first half, I was discouraged, confused, and lost about where I wanted to go with my career. I questioned whether all the choices I had made up to this point were wrong.

The start of summer kicked me in the butt with barely any work coming in, which meant no money in the pipeline. At the same time, I had all of these pre-planned trips (of course, made before the work/money slump). July came and I was a stress-case. I thought it would be really irresponsible if I went on all of those trips when I didn't know when paychecks would start coming in again. I fretted, contemplated, then declared war against my calculator. It was telling me not to go, and I so wanted to go.

I went.

But, not without giving it a lot of thought. And not without a financial plan to ensure I didn't end up homeless by September. So, I wasn't completely irresponsible.

Then, what I did was I took the work slump and turned it into an opportunity to re-evaluate my career. Time that I didn't have much of before to take a close look at my mistakes and map out what I needed to do to make some needed changes. Since I had several trips planned out, it was also an opportunity to vacation without the burden of deadlines hanging over me. I got to immerse myself in the experience of wine tasting in Napa, learning the culture of New Orleans, and hiking in Zion.

What could have been a bad summer turned into a really good one with just a little change in perspective. Instead of telling a story of failure and stress, I get to tell the story of the summer I moved out of my comfort zone and had an amazing time.

Now, it's fall, the earth's open invitation for change and new beginnings. A perfect time to start another story. And I'm ready for one. At this point I'm not quite sure yet what the plot or theme will be, but I know it involves my career and writing moving into another direction. The details are still in its preliminary draft, but at least I'm writing it. And that's a start.